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Old 08-29-2021, 12:38 PM
AcousticDreams AcousticDreams is offline
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Default Trick Recording techniques of famous Songs?

I remember back in the late 70's working sometimes first with a boom box cassette recorder, using my then Ovation 12 string guitar....and Shockingly getting a pretty great sound. Came in handy when over at my bass players house figuring out parts.
A very fun article popped up today on reverb called " How'd they Get that Sound"
Here is the one that caught my attention;Street Fighting Man was all acoustic guitar..no electric guitar!
"As Keith Richards puts it, "Street Fighting Man" was made with a bunch of toys the band had laying around. Aside from Charlie Watts' recording the drums using a practice kit from the thirties that could fit in a suitcase (the suitcase itself doubling as a kick drum), Richards tracked his guitar by overloading a small Phillips cassette player. More modern cassette players started to come with limiters so that users couldn't overload them when recording. At the time this track was recorded, however, Richards was able to push his machine to overload when tracking an acoustic guitar, so that it sounded electric when played back.

In the studio, he plugged the cassette player into a small extension speaker and recorded the larger extension speaker, so that the sound gained a little breadth and depth. He used the same process for guitar on this track as well as on "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Gimme Shelter," sometimes layering as many as eight tracks of guitar for the final mix. The only electric instrument on the "Street Fighting Man" is the bass. "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU8o6usr_oU&t=189s
https://reverb.com/news/howd-they-ge...term=Variant_2
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Old 08-29-2021, 02:56 PM
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Of course the guitar sound is pretty crummy. However with the rest of what is going on it fits into its niche distinctively.
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Old 08-29-2021, 06:50 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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The most widely known recording "trick" must be running two machines and slowing one of the tape reel flanges with a finger.

Guess what that popular sound effect that produced?
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Old 08-30-2021, 03:59 AM
_Mike_ _Mike_ is offline
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Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
The most widely known recording "trick" must be running two machines and slowing one of the tape reel flanges with a finger.

Guess what that popular sound effect that produced?

Slow the tape for recording and playback at normal speed gave Robert Plant a higher vocal range.

Allegedly, quite a few Zeppelin tunes had some form of tape manipulation

Last edited by _Mike_; 08-30-2021 at 04:01 AM. Reason: typo
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Old 08-30-2021, 04:44 AM
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Bob Womack Bob Womack is offline
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I've got a couple for you, but we will start with 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" from 1975. The chordal voices that became the accompaniment were created by having three members of the band record three tracks of each note, sixteen times, building up a forty-eight voice choir singing each note on the chromatic scale. Those were recorded onto a multitrack and the outputs were brought up to a mixing console with each note on fader. The band then played the mixing console as a musical instrument against a guide track to create the choir. The studio had been used to record many of the tracks for the Mellotron analog tape instrument, so the band, who were the studio's owners, knew how to pull this off. Nevertheless, the recording prep for the choir on this song alone took a week to accomplish. More HERE.

I distinctly remember this song in its chronological context. I was working at a summer camp in the summer of 1975 when it had its radio run. My roommate always left the stereo on while we slept, tuned to a radio station. One night I woke up, startled, with a girl's voice whispering in my ears: "Be quiet! Big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry,..."

Bob
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Old 08-30-2021, 04:51 AM
Nymuso Nymuso is offline
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I only recently noticed that in the Doors’ Riders on the Storm a voice is whispering the lyrics under Morrison’s singing. How did I not notice that all these years? But a very clever and inventive touch.
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Old 08-30-2021, 06:14 AM
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I only recently noticed that in the Doors’ Riders on the Storm a voice is whispering the lyrics under Morrison’s singing. How did I not notice that all these years? But a very clever and inventive touch.
We studied this one when I was studying recording techniques in college. The whisper track, rather than the lead vocal, feeds the reverb. As I understand it, the whisper track wasn't actually routed to the mix, only to the reverb. Ghostly.

Another case was when Three Dog Night were in the studio recording their cover of Russ Ballard's Argent song, "Liar!" They got to the sung/shouted antiphonal "Liar!" stabs in the chorus and tried a bunch of micing stuff but were never happy. On a break, one of the three vocalistas went into the restroom and was sing his bits while using the urinal and discovered that the room, the restroom at Sunsest Sound, had a really unique resonance to it. They ran mics to the restroom and the vocalistas did the stabs in there.

Bob
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Old 09-01-2021, 01:40 AM
Brent Hahn Brent Hahn is offline
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I've got a couple for you, but we will start with 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" from 1975. The chordal voices that became the accompaniment were created by...
There's been a lot written about about that. But there's more going on in that record. Like, say, the "kick drum." What's that, really?
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Old 09-01-2021, 04:27 AM
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There's been a lot written about about that. But there's more going on in that record. Like, say, the "kick drum." What's that, really?
The kick drum sound was generated on a MiniMoog synthesizer keyed by hand. And if you are looking for a definition of "kick drum," it used to be called a "bass drum." It is the drum down on the floor in front of a kit drummer that is beaten with a pedal that is stomped by the drummer. "Kick drum."

Bob
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Old 09-01-2021, 05:49 AM
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but we will start with 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" from 1975.

I've paid so little attention to that song that until now I
thought it was "I'm Not Alone"... after reading your post it
was fun to call it up and listen to the chorus. Of course, now
it is stuck in my head...

-Mike
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Old 09-01-2021, 06:44 AM
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Bob Womack Bob Womack is offline
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Originally Posted by hubcapsc View Post
but we will start with 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" from 1975.

I've paid so little attention to that song that until now I
thought it was "I'm Not Alone"... after reading your post it
was fun to call it up and listen to the chorus. Of course, now
it is stuck in my head...

-Mike
It's a major league earworm!


Bob
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